


acquired taste

by capo (gliss)



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Babysitting, M/M, Sousuke and Colas, a few cameos by some basketball players
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 09:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2463071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gliss/pseuds/capo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Babysitting isn't part of Sousuke's listed skill sets, but that's exactly what he ends up doing, with a few side effects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	acquired taste

**Author's Note:**

> idk guys get me out of rarepair hell. shout out to my rad beta [attemptsonwords](http://archiveofourown.org/users/attemptsonwords/pseuds/attemptsonwords)! i bet you wish you had a cool beta too.
> 
>  **warnings for this story:** implied sexual content, implied drug use, one instance of underage drinking, numerous instances of legal-age drinking / minor harurin, really minor mostly one-sided sourin, and kisumi gets his own warning for making spectacularly bad decisions. title snagged from absynthe minded's song of the same name. enjoy!

\--

 

 

The only thing keeping Sousuke’s legs moving upwards on the treacherous seven-floor climb is the prospect of an ice-cold Cola. At this point, he thinks, it’s not even about the taste anymore; he just wants something jarringly cold to press against his cheek. He just wants a long sip of something sweet and cool and kind of bubbly. The summer is way too hot this year - not that he doesn’t say this every year - and the stairs are located outside the building, so by the time Sousuke reaches his door, his clothes are clinging to him in all the wrong places.

He unlocks his door with a click and heads straight for the refrigerator, where eight out of a twelve-pack of Cola still remains, and leans his face against the cold metal with a sigh of relief. Thursdays are the worst, not because his classes start at eight in the morning, but because they don’t end until three in the afternoon, just when the sun is at its most poisonous. Thursdays involve Sousuke tearing off his clothes and sulking on his futon in his boxers, praying to god that his Cola supply replenishes itself without him having to lug another twelve-pack up seven flights of stairs. He pops open the tab on his can and sips at the drink, eyelids fluttering at the coolness flooding his mouth.

And then, of course, the door rings.

It’s the mailman. Sousuke - who thankfully hasn’t started taking his clothes off yet - stares at the mailman in mild surprise, especially when he’s handed a neat little package. “Um?”

“Well, I’m in a hurry, so I gotta run. See you around, Sou-chan!” The mailman pauses, and then leans over to snatch a drink from the soda in Sousuke’s other hand before running off.

“Sou-chan?” Sousuke repeats, eyes narrowing, but the mailman is gone by now.

He looks at the package in hand. It’s not for him. Actually, it rattles a little, and it’s addressed to a Shigino Kisumi, who happens to live next door. Sousuke’s never seen Shigino before, but from the noises through the walls he’s fairly certain the guy has a basketball fetish, a fondness for electric guitars, and really lively friends.

Sousuke decides to return the package tomorrow. For now, he’ll drink the rest of his soda before the bubbles fizz out.

\--

It actually takes two weeks before he gets a hold of Shigino Kisumi, since he avoids knocking on the door when he hears his really lively friends, and Shigino never seems to be home when his friends aren’t there. Sousuke wakes up early on Saturday and manages to catch him at around nine in the morning.

He doesn’t exactly know what he was expecting, but it’s definitely not bubblegum of the human variety.

Shigino smiles at him cheerfully in a way reminiscent, strangely enough, of the mailman. “Hey! You must be Yamazaki-kun, right? I’ve seen you going into your dorm sometimes. What’s up? It’s nice to meet you finally.”

Too many sentences, but at least Sousuke knows how to deal with that. He hands Shigino the package. “These were delivered to the wrong door.”

Shigino looks slightly disappointed, and Sousuke’s starting to feel uneasy, formulating an explanation about how they keep missing each other and how he doesn’t want to risk someone else picking up the package if he just left it out there, when the other boy speaks up again, saying, “Hey, are these my guitar picks?” and rattling it a little; “Oh, thanks - I thought something had gone wrong, so I ordered a new set. So you had these the whole time?”

“I. Yeah.” Sousuke tips his head forward. “Sorry about the inconvenience.”

“Ahhhh, and I spent extra for expedited shipping too,” Shigino’s musing, the lids of his eyes heavy, and that makes Sousuke feel bad enough to blurt out, against his better judgment and reasoning,

“I’m sorry again. Is there anything I can do to make up for it?”

Shigino’s mouth snaps shut into a thin, sweet line. His lips seem shiny under the morning sunlight, for some reason. “Well, actually - yeah.” Sousuke doesn’t say anything, just waits. “I have a study group and a game this afternoon, but my little brother’s visiting while my parents are out of town today, so you could… maybe… watch him for me?”

“Why don’t you just take him with you?” Sousuke asks.

“Because,” Shigino says, but doesn’t answer the question, instead flapping his hands around vaguely, “I understand if you’ll be busy today, but it’s just this one time, and Hayato’s a really good kid, I promise -”

Sousuke cuts him off. “Sure, sure. How old is he?”

“Four,” Shigino answers proudly. “Thanks, Yamazaki-kun! I’ll drop him off around three, then?”

“Yeah,” Sousuke says as the door closes on him, wondering what he’s gotten himself into.

\--

Hayato takes one look at Sousuke and bursts into tears.

“He’s a little shy,” Shigino says, but then kneels down to give his brother a hug. “Hey, don’t cry! I’ll be back before you know it, and Sousuke-kun’s a super nice guy, he’ll take really good care of you, okay? Hayato? Onii-chan has to get good grades, right? So he can buy you a house with a built-in playground?”

The sniffling dies down a little. Hayato nods, his giant eyes sparkling. “Okay…” he says, his voice small.

“There you go,” Shigino says, soothing, and he ruffles Hayato’s hair as he stands up again. “Be good, Hayato.”

“Okay,” Hayato says again.

When the door closes he gives Sousuke a nervous look, lower lip wobbling. Sousuke tries for a smile this time.

“So, uh,” he starts, the difference in pitch between his voice and Hayato’s big enough to startle him. He feels like a mountain next to the kid, like his hand could accidentally crush his face.

The same thought probably occurs to Hayato, who stares balefully at him, and then towards the floor.

“What’s up,” Sousuke says carefully, wondering how the next three hours are going to go, if he has to feed the kid, if he should be trying to enrich the kid’s mind or whatever. The last time he dealt with a four year old was when Kou was four, and she was talkative enough to make _Rin_ shut up. What did she talk about back then? Something about apples and unicorns. Fairy tale stuff. Oh God, is he expected to tell stories to Hayato? What would he even talk about?

Hayato’s lip continues to wobble, and he gives a little sniffle. Sousuke sighs.

“You can, uh, sit. On the couch.”

Hayato sits. On the couch.

“Want a Cola?”

Hayato shakes his head. “Onii-chan says it’s bad for me,” says the small, sad voice.

Sousuke thinks he’ll have to have a word with _Onii-chan_ about depriving small children of Colas, but seeing as he doesn’t know Shigino very well, refrains. “Next time,” he says instead, and then wants to slap himself in the forehead. Next time? There will be no next time. He doesn’t think he can get through _this_ time. Hayato lights up a little, though, so Sousuke sits down on the futon next to him, leaving a comfortable amount of space between. “Wanna tell me a little more about your brother?”

Another stare.

Sousuke wonders if it’s possible for brains to turn into mashed potatoes, all foreign and tasteless.

“Hungry?”

“Onii-chan says not to take food from strangers.”

This makes Sousuke’s eyebrow shoot up, because he’s fairly certain that Shigino is the type of guy who would be the stranger giving food to little kid. He leans back and remarks, “You know, you’re a lot better at listening than I was when I was four. What are you allowed to do then?”

Hayato looks a little gleeful at that, folding his little hands across his knees and saying, “Making sure you don’t get in trouble with Onii-chan.”

Oh, Sousuke thinks, it is _on_.

The next hour passes pretty quickly while Hayato chatters away about his brother, who’s apparently studying economics in school, which would explain why Sousuke, as a PT concentrator, never sees him on campus. Hayato calls economics “bank things”. Shigino Kisumi hates broccoli, and avoids cabbages, and has a lot of female friends who like to mess up Hayato’s hair, except it “only feels right when Onii-chan does it”; he also has a “cool guitar” but doesn’t really sing that much, and really shiny shoes.

After that, Hayato starts to drift off, his small body tired from talking and not having Cola, so Sousuke flips the TV on to something low, white noise, and picks up his anatomy textbook to get some studying done. Once he stops to position a cushion under Hayato’s head, awkwardly trying not to wake the kid up, and once he stops to pour himself a glass of water, and then he loses himself to leg muscles and the fuzzy sound of the historical documentary playing on the screen. It’s almost six in the evening when Hayato wakes up, grabbing sleepily at the edges of his cushion pillow.

He seems a lot more relaxed around Sousuke now, which Sousuke can’t help feeling proud about, so when Sousuke sneaks him a sip of soda, he doesn’t move away.

“Are you going to be here next Saturday?” Hayato asks.

“Yep,” Sousuke flips a page of his textbook and hopes that Shigino’s actually told Hayato that this was a one-time deal. Right on cue, there’s a knocking on the door. When Sousuke opens it Shigino’s on the other side, sweaty and exhausted, his sleepy eyes smiling, an afternoon’s worth of basketball flush on his cheeks. “Hey.”

“Thanks again, Yamazaki-kun,” says Shigino with a slight bow, “hey, Hayato? Onii-chan’s here to pick you up, let’s go eat something delicious for dinner!”

Hayato appears reluctantly at Sousuke’s side, gives him a watery stare, and then rushes into his brother’s arms.

“I’ll see you around, Yamazaki-kun,” Shigino says, backing out of the doorway while Sousuke thinks no, they probably won’t be seeing each other around, they’ve spent several months living next door to each other without ever running into each other, and he can go back to his routine life while Shigino entertains his hair-ruffling female friends and blasts electric guitar through the wall.

\--

The next Saturday rolls around, and at nine o’clock in the morning, on the dot, there’s a knock at Sousuke’s door.

“Good morning, Yamazaki-kun!” Shigino trills with Hayato looking expectantly on his arm, “Let’s go get breakfast today!”

“No, that’s okay,” Sousuke starts to say, realizing that he hasn’t combed his hair, so it sticks up in tufts every which way, and that he hasn’t shaved, and that he hasn’t brushed his teeth, and there’s Shigino looking like he stepped out of some kind of kitchen magazine with his comfortable looking grey T-shirt and his immaculate hair.

What the fuck. Completely uncalled for.

“Come on, it’ll be my treat,” Shigino continues, as Hayato bounces happily.

Alright then. Free food. Low budget. Why not?

“Let me, uh, get ready,” he rasps out, his voice scratchy with sleep. When he emerges ten minutes later, with marginally neater hair and a pleasant trace of wintermint in his mouth, Shigino is lounging on his futon while Hayato giggles and pokes at his stomach. Sousuke pushes at the sleeves of his blue shirt, which he realizes is more wrinkled than he thought, and yanks up at the waist of his jeans while Shigino isn’t looking. Hopefully. The great thing about being stressed out at college is that he’s actually lost weight since high school, but also can’t afford to buy new and outrageously priced jeans. “What are you doing?”

“Waiting,” Shigino answers serenely.

Fine, Sousuke thinks. Fine. Don’t look at the pale strip of Kisumi’s stomach. Don’t feel like your stomach is full of rainbows whenever Hayato laughs. Whatever. “Let’s just go.” At least he isn’t dealing with Hayato alone this time, although he’s not sure if having Shigino around makes it better or worse.

\--

It becomes a routine, kind of. Every Saturday at nine in the morning Shigino knocks at his door, Hayato on his arm, and they whirl Sousuke off to breakfast in a new part of Tokyo town. Shigino treats him each time, because inevitably in the afternoon he would disappear, leaving Hayato on Sousuke’s futon.

He ends up not getting a lot of studying done on Saturdays, despite Hayato being a fairly quiet kid. Who likes to cuddle. A lot. The whole thing feels kind of contagious, which means that he spends most of his time with Hayato curled up either on him or around him like a kitten.

Sousuke’s startled awake one evening in late August from what he swears up and down was an intensive studying session about stomach muscles and _not_ a pleasant late-afternoon nap with Hayato nestled neatly on his chest and a flimsy blanket draped over the two of them. When he opens his eyes the sky’s getting this neat, ember-like glow around the edges, soft and fuzzily coral colored. Hayato burrows his little face into the crook of Sousuke’s neck, which does interesting things to the tightness in his chest, so instead of getting up when the door rattles, Sousuke calls out: “Come in.”

Shigino slips through the door and looks pleasantly surprised at the sight. “Having fun?”

“I was studying,” says Sousuke, very defensively, for no particular reason. Shigino makes his way over so that he can get a better look at the two of them.

“Chill out,” he laughs, “I wasn’t expecting you to teach Hayato about physical therapy or anything. But I’m glad you two are getting along well.”

Sousuke’s eyes narrow. “You’re sweating. Go take a shower before you pick Hayato up, he’s asleep anyway.”

“Awwww,” Shigino whines, and his lips come together into a pale pink pout, “I was going to, but I just missed seeing my baby brother a little too much.” He laughs, high and wild, his hands trembling where they’re resting on the back of the futon. Sousuke gets the wildest urge to grab hold of his fingers and soothe them steady, but instead he just lies there, letting Hayato use him as a literal body pillow. For a moment, Shigino’s face lingers a little too closely to his own, and Sousuke feels the heat radiating off his cheeks. Then it’s like both of them remember that Hayato is there; the heat fades away quickly. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, then, Sou-chan! _Au revoir_ -”

“No, hold up.”

Shigino lingers in the doorway with the throaty and badly accented French tipping out of his mouth, his long body tilted against the doorframe. Sousuke hopes he’s doing that on purpose.

“What the hell was that?”

“What was what?”

Sousuke sneaks a look at Hayato to make sure he’s still asleep, and then continues. “Sou-chan? The hell kind of dumbass name is that?”

“Wh- it’s cute, it suits you,” Shigino says, his palms coming up, “See ya, Sou-chan.”

“Just call me Sousuke,” Sousuke bursts out, his chest tightening again, and Shigino laughs some more before the door closes with a slam.

When he comes back after his shower, clean and smelling very strongly of oranges, Hayato is awake and talking happily about the dreams he had, something about a cat town and cats that played violins. Sousuke listens more intently that he meant to, dropping any pretense of reviewing the parts of the stomach and anything that might go wrong with them, instead finds himself asking questions about the mayor of cat town, if the mayor has nice suits, if the cats groom their tails.

“You coming to the game Monday night, Sousuke?” Shigino asks, hooking an arm around Hayato’s stomach and scooping him up to a delighted squeal.

“Game?” Sousuke repeats.

“I have a game, Monday night, and an extra ticket, but my date cancelled on me, said she was going to go see some kind of play with her friends,” Shigino hoists Hayato over his shoulders, and Hayato rests his chin on top of his brother’s head. The motion is so quick and easy that Sousuke wonders why he’s never tried it himself, and then quickly stops thinking down that path. Instead he thinks about the words _my date_ and _extra ticket_ and wants the can of soda on his coffee table to swallow him whole. At least he’d die a bubbly death that way.

“I don’t know,” he says, not looking at Shigino’s fluffy, sugar-spun hair. “I have an exam on Friday -”

“Soooouuusukeee,” Shigino wheedles. “It’s free! I’ll let you meet the rest of the team, too. Consider it a free backstage pass.” He winks. Sousuke frowns.

“Look, Shigino -”

“Kisumi.”

Fine, then, thinks Sousuke. Kisumi. He clears his throat, suddenly aware that it’s becoming dry. “Kisumi. We don’t even know each other that well. How do I know you’re not actually taking me to an opium den or something?”

Kisumi looks shocked for a split second, and then bursts out laughing. “You made a joke! An _actual joke_ , an _actual funny joke_. Hold on, let me write it down.”

He doesn’t write it down, but he leaves the extra ticket on Sousuke’s coffee table as he twirls Hayato out the door.

\--

Kisumi ends up taking him to a bar after the game after wheedling with the ghost-like bartender, where he orders himself a shot of something extremely sweet - Sousuke has to store this fact away, so he can confront him about not letting Hayato eat candy later - and then proceeds to give Sousuke a roaring play-by-play of the game. They won by a pretty good margin, mostly because of their shooting guard/point guard duo, but Kisumi did well as small forward, drawing out foul after foul with a poisonous smile in his face.

“That’s great, Kisumi,” says one of Kisumi’s friends, a blond guy with ear piercings who’s hanging all over previously mentioned shooting guard, and another girl whose hair is the sort of long and pink that Rin cries over laughs and twirls herself into Kisumi’s lap, giving Sousuke a cheerful smile.

“Yuzuki-chan should’ve coooome,” the blond boy sighs, “it’s not like she doesn’t have ear plugs in for the whole time, anyway.”

“It’s a woman’s thing,” the girl, who’s been introduced to Sousuke several times, drunkenly, by various people, whose name he still doesn’t quite remember, “you wouldn’t get it, Kicchin.” Kicchin, whose real name Sousuke also doesn’t recall, tosses his bangs out of his eyes and says, “Nah, it’s a fucking musical.”

Kisumi grins and kisses the girl’s cheek, in a state of great intoxication, and Sousuke feels like he’s going to throw up. What the fuck is he doing here, low lights and throbbing bass, too many voices and too much exposed skin, watching Kisumi flirt with anyone who so much as looks at him? Pink-haired girl and blond guy continue to harass the stars of the game, whining something about exploring this side of Tokyo while stoned, while Kisumi’s hands wander down the girls back, stopping around her waist, his thin fingers crawling laughter through her lungs.

“This is Satsuki,” he thinks Kisumi says, but he doesn’t want to listen as girl-who-may-be-Satsuki and Kicchin start hollering at the bartender, who rolls his eyes - Sousuke doesn’t really notice him until he hears the dry and unamused clinking of glass - and tells them to stop crowding the shooting guard guy.

Sousuke stands up. He doesn’t know what else to do, so he tosses the rest of his beer down his throat, slips out of his seat and out the door. His head is buzzing a little with the din of the bar, and the way the night breeze rushes around his hair makes it feel like the top of his skull is crackling. Figures that Kisumi would drag him all the way out here and then forget about him when he has better people to talk to, people who can actually keep up with the spew of basketball talk.

He thinks about taking a walk, heading back to the dorms, but ends up just hanging out against the side of the building, wondering what it’d be like to have a cigarette. Rin made him promise not to do anything extremely illegal, but then again, Rin is on a different side of the world pursuing his dreams and probably making out with that fine arts major he spends most of his time telling Sousuke about during their Skype sessions. Rin likes to go on about his silky dark hair until Sousuke grips his own hair, which is dark but probably not silky, and tells Rin to shut up. Rin listens to him because that’s pretty much all he can do nowadays, which Sousuke doesn’t like to think about, but then what else is he supposed to -

“Thought you’d be here,” says a voice to his left, bright and fuzzy with alcohol. A pressure asserts himself onto his shoulder, making him wince a little, and then he’s shoving off.

“Go away, Kisumi,” Sousuke hears himself growl. It’s a little removed from his body. Kisumi’s mouth narrowly misses biting down onto his bad shoulder.

“What’s wrong now? You looked like you were having fun earlier, Satsuki says she wants to get to know you better.” Kisumi sniffles a little in the cool of the evening, and then throws his arms out grandly, and then has to clutch onto Sousuke for balance. The two of them stumble for a few steps, but Kisumi doesn’t disengage. “You can come explore this side of Tokyo with us, apparently they got a hotel room across from the train station.” When Sousuke doesn’t move, Kisumi tugs on his arm. “What, you’re not having a good time?”

“What in fuck’s name would I have a good time about,” asks Sousuke of the street lamp three feet away.

“Satsuki loves you,” Kisumi starts to say, like that explains everything, but then stops. “You don’t like her?”

“Does it matter if I do?” Sousuke snaps, the anger whipping along the inside of his mouth. It’s a foreign feeling, quick and hot and wild. He feels disgusted with himself too, that he’s angry about this, without reason.

Kisumi looks uncertain now, or maybe he always did, his eyes dark and spaced out, and it’s then that Sousuke notices the scent of something sharp and sweet and sickening attached to him.

“Are you fucking high?” he hisses. When Kisumi just nods, satisfied and loopy, Sousuke shoves him away, into the brick wall, where he slides down into a kind of half-crouch, looking like he’s having the ride of his life. Then Sousuke feels the tightening in his chest again, like a bowstring, maybe a heartstring pulled taut. Kisumi’s head tilts back so that the pale flesh of his throat gets dyed shuttered gold from the street lamp, and the string snaps.

“I don’t -” it’s like every little bit of tension between the two of them gets shoved into Sousuke’s throat, choking his voice out low, “what the fuck, Kisumi, you have a baby brother, what the _fuck_ are you doing -”

“Sousuke,” Kisumi’s laughing a little, the same wild laugh he always gives, “come on, relax, you’re still young and everything, you can even hang out with Shin-chan and be sticks in the mud together.”

“I don’t need your fucking pity invite,” Sousuke spits out, suddenly angry beyond _belief_ , _what am I doing here I don’t belong here I don’t belong anywhere and I can’t keep up_ , “I _don’t_.”

He tears himself away from the noise of the bar, the feeling tingling down his entire body like Velcro being pulled apart, and doesn’t stop running until he’s stumbling up the seven flights of stairs, cold sweat dragging his shirt (his nice shirt, _fuck_ Kisumi and his goddamn pastel-headed group of friends) against his back.

\--

Sousuke gets a call to the landline phone on Friday. He only picks it up because he expects it to be some authority from high-above, coming to tell him off about the dangers of underage drinking and frequenting bars, because he doesn’t put it past most of the student body to somehow know where he’d been Monday night.

“Hello, this is Yamazaki,” he mutters into the receiver.

“Figures,” comes a foreign voice on the other end. It’s smooth and kind of hot - or it would be, if not for the cold apathy coloring it. Sousuke frowns and goes to hang up, except then he hears what is distinctly Rin’s voice going “Oi, hand over the phone, Haru,” followed by a shuffling of static.

Sousuke is incredulous. “ _That_ ’s Haru?”

“Yeah,” Rin sighs all dreamy.

“Seriously, Rin?”

“Yeah,” sighs Rin again, disintegrating blissfully, like a particularly muddy pup rolling into the bath. Sousuke doesn’t know whether to feel happy or disgusted. “Yeah…”

“Rin.”

“Right. Thought you might be at home, so I decided to call you, y’know? What’s wrong?”

For a few seconds Sousuke actually considers telling Rin - that he’s been looking after this kid, and now he accidentally got into a fight with the kid’s brother, and it all kind of blows because he kind of likes the guy in a way that goes beyond wanting to help look after the kid. It sounds stupid even in his head. He wonders what Kisumi’s doing, if Kisumi and his fast-living friends went to go explore all the hidden corner of the city, if they snuck joints into the girl’s designer purse, if they asked where he went.

“...What do you mean, what’s wrong?” he asks instead.

“Sousuke,” Rin says, pleasant, “I know something is wrong. On Tuesday you said you couldn’t Skype because you had a paper to write, but on Wednesday you said you had an exam, and then yesterday you said you were going to the gym? When was the last time you went to the gym, like, a hundred years ago?”

His voice gets a little rougher around the edges. Sousuke frowns. Of course Rin would know. He was hoping Rin wouldn’t notice, because -

“Hey, remember what we said before I left for Australia?” Rin cuts in.

“I _know_ ,” Sousuke grinds out, restless, embarrassed. “No more secrets, unless it’s sex related, no illegal drugs, no cutting classes unless we’re deathly ill.” He pauses. “No doing the handshake with another guy.”

“Yeah.” Rin’s silent for a few seconds. The silence hangs heavy into the cord of the phone. “I’m just - like, you know you can tell me secrets, okay? I said all that stuff for a reason.”

The reason doesn’t get discussed. They wait for it to dissolve back into the past, where it came from. Sousuke fiddles with the cord for a few more seconds, and then finally says, “I know. So is Nanase like a dead fish in bed?”

Rin seems to relax - from what he can tell through their bustling conversation. It’s a poor and inadequate attempt at changing the subject, but he hopes Rin appreciates it. “What the fuck do you know about being in bed with a dead fish?”

“Not as much as you, I’m sure.” Sousuke manages a laugh, faint but genuine. “I’m fine, Rin. But thanks for calling.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll come visit soon so you can meet Haru.”

“No, that’s oka-” but Rin chuckles, and hangs up, and Sousuke holds the phone to his ear, like the dial tone can convey some unsaid message.

\--

The knock on his door comes on Saturday morning and Sousuke doesn’t answer. He drifts off to sleep again to the drum of Kisumi’s knuckles and an occasional call of “Sousuke?”

\--

It’s his first free Saturday in close to two months, and he doesn’t know what to do, exactly, so he ends up pulling out all his notes for all his classes, fidgeting restlessly on the futon, eating crackers and trying to study.

He wonders what Hayato is doing, puts his cellphone under his pillow, doesn’t answer it all day.

It strikes him then how _quiet_ it is. No electric guitar blasting through the wall, no endless giggling. Sousuke flips on the TV for white noise and wonders when he managed to carve space out in his life for his dumb fuck next door neighbor and his stupid pink hair and his unfairly adorable little brother. When he started falling asleep looking forward to breakfast on Saturdays instead of Skype calls on Tuesdays.

Stupid. He did so much better when it was just him and Rin, goading each other to score higher on exams, pointing out to Rin that frequenting the Korean barbecue place down the street wasn’t going to do anything too great for his physique, the two of them joking carefully about how Sousuke’s going to lose his muscle definition if he doesn’t start working out again soon.

Then Rin had to mess up the system by getting together with Nanase, the two of them conquering Australian shores. Nanase painting pictures, daring to do laps alongside Olympic swimmers. Nanase doing everything Sousuke thought he and Rin would do, one day. Nanase cupping Rin’s face in slender, strong hands, when Sousuke knows he can do better, his hands are warmer -

 _Whatever_. He shrugs to himself, crunches his way through a cracker, flips a page without remembering a word he’d just read. They’d said goodbye and Rin apologized for not noticing everything sooner, for not sending him to PT sooner, and Sousuke had told him to get on with his dream already, and meant it. He’s just experiencing a momentary weakness, or something. He’s over it.

And then it’s like someone switches on the rest of his memories about that sunny afternoon at the airport, repeating together the dumb vows they’d made. No secrets. No illegal drugs. What came after.

“Don’t you dare give up on yourself,” Rin’d said, and left. He was always one for dramatic effect.

Sousuke snorts and rereads the page, picks up a cracker, but doesn’t put it into his mouth. Instead he gets up from the futon and walks over to his closet, throws a change of clothes, a towel, a water bottle together, steps out of his pajamas, ties together his running shoes.

\--

Except when he arrives at the gym he sees Shigino Kisumi on the treadmill. One of three treadmills, to be exact. Some kid he doesn’t know is on the third one, the one on the left, which means he’s going to end up running next to Kisumi, who catches sight of him through the glass windows and waves excitedly.

“Where were you all day?” Kisumi asks him, all casual, like Monday never happened. Sousuke shrugs vaguely. “Hayato missed you. He told me his heart was broken, and that in order to make up for it, you’ll have to let him sleep over at your place.”

“That’s such a fucking lie,” Sousuke grunts as he stretches out his quads, still careful. He’s over conscious of how this is only the second time - third. Third time he’s been one-on-one with Kisumi, how they’re probably not going to get any closer than they already are, how Kisumi’s hands fit around that girl’s waist perfectly. “Hayato would never say anything like that.”

Kisumi sighs dramatically. “Okay, you caught me! Maybe it’s me with the broken heart, and I want you to sleep over at my place over the weekend.”

“Nice try.” Sousuke punches the control on the treadmill for a while and starts walking at a moderate speed. His heart thuds despite the easy pace. “Remember when I accused you of taking me to an opium den and then you actually took me to one? How do I know you’re not going to get me high at your place and then we’ll end up tossing Hayato out the window, or something -”

“Hayato’s staying with my grandparents over the weekend,” Kisumi interrupts, “he didn’t want to stay with me if you weren’t around.” He pauses long enough for Sousuke’s brain to catch up and think, _what_? “Besides, I can’t leave him alone when I go to games on Saturdays, so -”

“Why don’t you take him with you?”

“He doesn’t like basketball too much,” Kisumi says, his voice clipped.

“Oh.”

He’s getting the feeling that if he asks more questions he’s going to fuck something up, but says, cautious: “Have you ever… y’know, taken a day off?”

“Don’t be stupid, of course I have. My therapist says I’m pretty fucked if I keep playing like this, anyway, I just thought - while I could, or something like that -”

“What?”

Kisumi stares straight at him, and his eyes are, for once, not smiling. Sousuke realizes that he knows the look. It was the look on his own face when he told Rin he’d probably never get to swim with him again, not that way, at least not for years, not until it’s too late to count. So when Kisumi sighs and this small, resigned noise comes out of him, Sousuke cuts him short with a “Where?”

Now Kisumi looks startled, suspicious even, before relaxing. “Wrist. Left wrist. My dad always told me it was lucky I was left-handed, but I guess not, huh? My knee’s not doing too great either, actually. I thought, I guess, I’d be able to go pro at some point, but Shin-chan and them are on this whole other level. And economics is more stable, or whatever, so why not?”

Sousuke manages to walk an entire lap without talking. Next to him, Kisumi’s slowing down, reaching for his water, snapping out his wrist even though they both know that it’s a fucking stupid thing to do. Or maybe it’s not that stupid, because something occurs to him.

“Hey, Kisumi,” he says, slow.

“Yeah?”

“It’s not basketball that’s giving you wrist problems.” He pauses, thinks about his words, and then decides, fuck it. Kisumi’s eyes flicker uncertainly, somewhere between hope and resignation, and it tugs at the pit of Sousuke’s stomach with how familiar it is. If he can stop one more person for heading down the same stupid path he threw himself down, it’s kind of worth it anyway.

“It’s the guitar.”

\--

Sousuke hasn’t ever seen the inside of Kisumi’s place, but it’s surprisingly not that bad - electric guitar in the corner, TV, a bed with red, red sheets, dark red like poppies. He has a stuffed animal on his bed, a large white seal, black pillows. It’s the kind of bed Rin probably wants to have.

Kisumi hands him a beer, which Sousuke shakes his head at. “What, not into alcohol?”

“Uh. I’m nineteen, Kisumi,” Sousuke says, “or did you forget?”

They stare at each other for a moment, and then Kisumi, all newly showered and smelling of oranges, crowds him up against the wall and pushes their bodies together and kisses him nice and slow and thorough.

Sousuke puts his hands on the hard jut of Kisumi’s hip bones, and thinks about whether his skin is still creamy and pale there, under the sweatpants, and then he doesn’t think.

“Oh, thank God. I can’t believe you’re really here,” Kisumi whispers against his mouth, an incredulous smile lighting up his face, “I wanted you here for _ages_ , like, ever since you gave me my guitar picks.” He stops and a look of unease crosses through his eyes. Sousuke gapes at him.

“You’re,” he licks his lips, which feel dry with spit if that’s even possible, “ _not_ straight?”

“Do I _look_ straight?” Kisumi asks, and grinds hard into Sousuke, enough that the breath gets squeezed out of his chest, unpleasant memories fading away. Kisumi is grinding into Sousuke. Kisumi just kissed Sousuke. Sousuke decides not to question it anymore. “Hey, can I ask you a favor?”

Sousuke’s eyes slide shut. He strokes his thumb along the waist of Kisumi’s sweats and mutters, yeah, fuck, anything, and the screws in his ribcage loosen enough for him to exhale against Kisumi’s mouth. Against Kisumi’s lips, which are swollen from kissing him already, like he doesn’t kiss many people. Fuck, he thinks again.

“If you think I should lay off the guitar for a while, can I teach you instead?”

“That’s,” Sousuke gets out, “really random.”

Kisumi kisses him with tongue.

“Yeah,” Sousuke breathes when they stop, “yeah, anything.”

“You’re seriously the nicest person I’ve ever met,” Kisumi tells him later on, when they’re sitting flushed and kind of hungry on his bed, cross legged like little kids. Except Sousuke’s wearing one of Kisumi’s shirts, and also his boxers, which are pale pink and checkered and _incredibly_ gay. He wanted to go back and change, since he’s “literally _next door_ , Kisumi,” but Kisumi wouldn’t hear of it, shoving clothes at him.

“Do you say this to all your babysitters who eventually hook up with you,” Sousuke shoots back, annoyed that he kind of wants to go another round.

“Relax, I’ve never had a babysitter before. Besides, I don’t think you count, since I never actually paid you.”

“You buy me breakfast every week,” Sousuke points out, puzzled and thrilled and even more annoyed that he wants to go another round even more, and possibly ruin Kisumi’s boxers in the process.

Kisumi fixes him with a stare that’s full of amusement. “Dude, those were dates.”

“You brought you baby brother along on our _dates_?” It doesn’t occur to Sousuke that he doesn’t deny them being dates, which makes him wonder how obvious he’s been for the past two months.

“Hayato’s like my cute accessory,” Kisumi says after a moment, and leans forward to kiss him again, hard and quick. Weeks later Sousuke would figure out that that’s how Kisumi deals with being embarrassed. “Or maybe I was using him to test you out.”

“Sure, Kisumi.”

“You passed, by the way.”

\--

The next Saturday, Hayato’s back. Sousuke takes him on an outing to go see Kisumi play streetball, on the condition that he gets to have his own Cola, and stays out of the path of rogue basketballs.

Hayato squeals happily whenever Kisumi sinks the ball through the hoop. Kisumi’s basketball playing friends are there again, the girl with the really pink hair that Sousuke now recognizes as very pretty, and the blond guy who nods approvingly every time a point is scored. Kisumi’s shoes flash through the afternoon, and afterwards, when he introduces Hayato properly to the rest of his friends, Sousuke takes the opportunity to say:

“You know, you have a really cute little brother,” and the way Kisumi wriggles in glee doesn’t go unnoticed.

\--

On Sousuke’s birthday, Rin calls again. Well, it’s more like Nanase calls while Sousuke is doing the dishes, so Kisumi’s the one who actually answers him.

“Hellooooo? Sousuke’s busy right now, but I can take a message! He’ll be over in a few minutes, he’s just doing the dishes. Oh, wait, he got soap on his shoulder - wow, he actually isn’t too good at - what’s that? Tell him you give him your condolences? Hey, was that a jab at m-”

Sousuke switches off the tap water, wipes his hands on his shirt (which earns him a look from Kisumi that he ignores), and snatches the phone. “Put Rin on, please.”

“Sousuke,” Rin says immediately, after a much shorter shuffling time than usual, “I’d like to retract the no secrets except sex thing immediately. _Please_ tell me for the love of god how he is. Also, happy birthday. Tell me what it’s like to get drunk and make out while drunk.”

“What the f-”

“Stop that, Haru,” comes another voice from the other end, one that isn’t Rin or Nanase; it sounds milder, lighter. “Ow! That burns -”

“Your fault for standing too close to the stove,” Nanase says, very clearly. “The stove is for Rin and me.”

Sousuke can actually hear Rin smirking, so he just says, “Thanks for calling, Rin.”

“Yeah! Happy birthday again. Sorry I couldn’t get you a proper present, but Makoto said that you probably didn’t need a vibrator at this point, so -”

“Rin! I _did not_ ,” says the third voice, now identified as ‘Makoto.’ Sousuke frowns into the phone while Kisumi slips his fingers down Sousuke’s shirt, undoing the buttons lightly.

“It’s fine, Rin, really,” Sousuke laughs a little, feeling a rush of friendly feelings towards the mysterious Makoto.

“He might need one even more,” Nanase points out, and the friendly feelings vanish with a snap.

“I did get you some swimming goggles, though, they’ll be arriving soon,” Rin adds, which doesn’t make Sousuke grip the phone so tight that his knuckles go white, not at all.

He doesn’t keep Rin on the phone much longer. Kisumi drags him next door and hands him a shot glass filled with deep red liquid, which he doesn’t refuse. It tastes vile, just like it did last time, but then Kisumi’s shotgunning it from his mouth, filthy and kind of sticky, and it makes his tongue prickle just so. Kisumi smiles full this time, teeth showing and eyes slimming into long, thin lines of lavendar -

Everything goes kind of surreal, like sounds echoing in a pool.

Kisumi is wearing eyeliner, Sousuke realizes.

Kisumi is the _best_.

\--

He doesn’t expect to tell Kisumi first, and not while they’re cramped together into his too-small bed in the dark, hair spilling together on his pillow, Kisumi’s illuminated through the window blinds.

“I’m going to try out for the swim team next term,” he whispers, and at first he feels like he’s talking mostly to himself, watching the lighted sliver of Kisumi’s throat rise up and down. “I’ve decided.”

Kisumi stirs, which Sousuke wasn’t expecting. They haven’t done anything all day, just lounged around reviewing for finals in their pajamas. At three in the afternoon Kisumi ordered for delivery, cheap, college-budget Chinese takeout doused with sweet and sour sauce, and now Sousuke’s stomach makes a faint noise of hunger. Kisumi’s breath comes warm against his neck as he whispers back.

“I’m excited for you, Sousuke.”

And Sousuke’s felt it for a long time, to be honest, this kittenish tug between his ribs that threatens to spill soft and fond like a child’s giggle from his lips. Now he nods, the motion knocking their foreheads together gently, and when he says “me, too,” he means it.

 

 


End file.
